Christopher Aikman

+ Asteroids discovered: 6 was based on microwave surveys of selected emission nebulae in the northern Milky Way made with the 46-m radio telescope of the Algonquin Radio Observatory, including the emission nebula IC1795. This revealed what is perhaps the youngest high-mass stellar object in the Galaxy, namely W3(OH), a cocoon star invisible at optical wavelengths but surrounded by a rapidly expanding ultracompact HII region, all within a dense obscuring dust shell. W3(OH) had previously been located in 1966 as the source of the first radio-identified astrophysical maser.

Career He began working for the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in 1968 as the Director's scientific assistant. His initial research was on the spectroscopy of comets, and of chemically peculiar stars whose surface compositions differ markedly from that of the Sun, with the aim of understanding the origin of their anomalies. This led to the discovery of a chemically peculiar star, HR 7775, having extraordinary enhancements of the element gold in its atmosphere.

A twenty-year study of the B6III star 3 Vulpeculae by D. P. Hube and Aikman eventually contributed to the recognition of a group of hot, variable stars now known as slowly pulsating B-type stars (SPB stars).

From 1991, he conducted a program of tracking newly discovered Earth approaching asteroids with the historic telescope built by John S. Plaskett. Incidentally the program led to the recovery and numbering of lost asteroids, plus the discoveries of new ones. The project was cancelled in 1997.